Readers Guide: Steadman’s ‘The Light Between Oceans’ at Library

Friday

Oct 12, 2012 at 5:56 PMOct 12, 2012 at 5:58 PM

Sports announcer and television producer Mark Shillingford is probably the only person watching who realized that his twin sister, Clare, a talented and competitive jockey, just threw the race she was in when she could have very easily won.

by Susie Stooksbury/Special to The Oak Ridger

Sports announcer and television producer Mark Shillingford is probably the only person watching who realized that his twin sister, Clare, a talented and competitive jockey, just threw the race she was in when she could have very easily won. When Mark angrily confronts her about it, she reveals nonchalantly that she has deliberately lost several races. Later that evening, however, Clare jumps to her death from the balcony of a London hotel. Full of guilt and anger, Mark vows to find out what Clare was involved in — a decision that just might cost him his life. Felix Francis capably steps into his late father's shoes in “Dick Francis's Bloodline” (M).

Morton Meyers, professor of radiology and medicine with the State University of New York at Stony Brook, takes us into the less noble, dark side of science in “Prize Fight: the Race and the Rivalry to Be the First in Science” (174.950). He follows closely two recent incidents where the drive for recognition and money brought out the worst in the scientists involved — the discovery of the antibiotic stryptomycin and the development of medical applications for magnetic resonance imaging.

Benjamin Benjamin, Jr., has run into some really bad luck. A stay-at-home dad, his children were tragically killed in an accident and his wife has left him. Needing a job but lacking marketable skills, the 39-year-old trains to become a personal caregiver. His first client is Trevor, a typical adolescent in the advanced stages of Duchenne muscular dystrophy. Uncomfortable with each other at first, Ben soon agrees to take Trev across country to see his estranged father. “The Revised Fundamentals of Caregiving” is a witty, quirky road trip you will never forget. Jonathan Evison is the author.

Apparently more than evil-doers are interested in what we do on the internet. Advertisers are using every bit of information they can glean on each of us (and evidently that's way more than we realize) to target products and services. In short, they are profiling us and manipulating what we see whenever we log on. That's the message from University of Pennsylvania professor of communications Joseph Turow. He makes his thought-provoking case in “The Daily You: How the New Advertising Industry is Defining Your Identity and Your Worth” (659.100).

Among the social changes brought about by World War I was the decline of the great houses of England. Until then, these sprawling estates were essentially a microcosm of the English social system, with an army of lower class servants working hard to provide the comfortably lavish lifestyle of their masters. Sarah Warwick, a social historian, follows a typical day at one of these manor houses as the owners and their retainers prepare for a dinner party in “Upstairs & Downstairs: the Illustrated Guide to the Real World of Downton Abbey” (941.082).

After the horrors of World War I, the job as a lighthouse keeper off the coast of Australia seems like a godsend to Tom Sherbourne. He and his bride Isabel have each other and that's enough as they set out together on their future. Four years and two miscarriages later, though, they begin to feel that something is lacking — until a boat washes ashore bearing a crying infant and the body of a dead man. Convinced that the baby is a gift from God, Isabel talks Tom into keeping the child she names Lucy. But two years later when Tom's stint is done and they are back on the mainland, the Sherbourne's learn the truth about Lucy and her family. “The Light Between Oceans” marks the moving fiction debut of M. L. Steadman.